Remembering Gastonia's dominating Teener League baseball of the 1960s

GASTONIA – As Dixie Youth, Junior Tar Heel and Little League baseball regional and state tournament play begins in our area, each team will hoping to create memories that last a lifetime.

But one thing is certain: They won’t be able to duplicate the level of dominance Gastonia’s Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Teener baseball teams enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s – including a 1963 national championship team that celebrates its 50th anniversary next month.

How dominant were Gastonia’s teams?

In the 16 years VFW sponsored the baseball program for boys ages 13 to 15 from 1954 through 1969, Gastonia Absher-Flowers Post 9337 won 10 state titles, four national titles and advanced to five other national championship tournaments.

“It was just a real special time,” said Roddey Edwards, a player on the 1961 national championship team. “And I probably didn’t appreciate that until I moved away from Gastonia. Most of us grew up going to the games and baseball, really all sports, were just a way of life.”

That was particularly true for Edwards, whose father Lyle worked at the old Gastonia Gazette for 35 years and frequently took his son to local recreation, high school and minor league sporting events in town – and especially at Sims Legion Park.

Sims Legion Park had been opened in 1950 and has remained a centerpiece for local sports activities. While it is the home to the Gastonia Post 23 American legion baseball team and the Gastonia Grizzlies Coastal Plain League summer college baseball team these days, it was minor league and Post 23 baseball in those days.

And those Gastonia VFW teams were the forerunner to extraordinary Legion baseball success in those years.

Shortly after the VFW championship seasons, Gastonia Post 23 won a record five straight North Carolina Area IV championships from 1962-66; Cherryville last season broke that record with its sixth straight Area IV title. Those Gastonia Teener League teams also provided players for Belmont Post 144 and Bessemer City Post 243.

“It was a county-wide team, pretty much,” said Larry Hartsell, a player on the 1963 national championship team from Mount Holly who later played for Belmont Post 144 and for Belmont Abbey College. “And we had lots of talent that had grown up playing baseball.”

But if you ask any of the players from Gastonia’s glorious era that included national championships in 1960, 1961, 1963 and 1964 and runner-up finishes in 1956 and 1962, they also talk about the great instruction they received from veteran coaches Russ Bergmann, J.V. McGinnis, Jim Barker and Berry Cauble.

“They were just masterful coaches,” said Larry Johnson, a player on the 1960 national championship team. “J.V. McGinnis was a master of the technical side of baseball. He knew the details of how to read a pitcher, steal bases and check runners. We played his brand of up-tempo baseball.”

Last month, when 1961 player Bruce Bolick brought his Lincoln County Post 455 American Legion team to Sims Legion to play Gastonia Post 23, 12 former players showed for a mini-reunion.

They told stories of baseball, their families – and their years of friendship. To a man, their bond remains unshakeable as are the memories from what they experienced all those years ago.

It’s a group that has suffered losses, as at least five members of their teams have died in the years since, including Vietnam War casualty Tony Hill.

Hill was a member of the 1962 national runner-up team and was the MVP of that year’s state tournament, which for many years was held at East Carolina University’s baseball field in Greenville.

The 1960 team, which won the city’s first national title since the 1935 American Legion championship won at Gastonia’s old stadium, was perhaps the most celebrated of the title teams.

After Gastonia beat Struthers, Ohio, 12-3 in the title game at Hershey, Pa., on tournament MVP Dariel Forrester’s 3-hitter, they were greeted by local celebrities at the Wilkinson Boulevard bridge on the Catawba River at the Mecklenburg-Gaston county line.

“U.S. Congressman Basil Whitener and WSOC-TV Channel 9 sports announcer ‘Big’ Bill Ward met us at the bridge and we rode in a parade all the way back to Gastonia in our own individual cars,” Johnson said. “It was something I’ll never forget.”

The celebrations continued in future years.

“Seeing the older teams play gave us something to shoot for,” said Ed Thompson, a member of the 1963 and 1964 national championship teams.

The coaches and organizers of the VFW national tournament also provided other memories.

Not only did players from each of the eight teams in the national championship team get to visit the Hershey’s Chocolate Factory, but the NFL Philadelphia Eagles held their training camp just beyond the left field fence at the Hershey, Pa., championship field and Gastonia coaches arranged to see major league baseball games either on their way to the tournament or on their way back home.

The 1960 championship team recalls seeing Hall of Famer Ted Williams play for the Boston Red Sox at old Baltimore Memorial Stadium against the Orioles. And the 1963 championship team recalls seeing Baltimore’s Boog Powell slug three home runs in a game played at what was then called D.C. Stadium (now RFK Stadium) against the old Washington Senators.

“It was just incredibly meaningful to be 14 and 15 years old and get that kind of opportunity,” Thompson said. “I went back a few years ago with my wife when we took a family vacation. And, even now, thinking about Hershey and what we did brings back so many good memories.”

You can reach Richard Walker at 704-869-1841 or by twitter.com/JRWalk22